life and death and 100 of the cutest things you have ever seen.

I have been wanting to write a blog post about my feelings on the expansion of our co-operative farm for awhile now~ ever since the day I took my first bite of our goat Thunder to be exact. But it is so sensitive to me, and hard to clarify my own internal conflict over eating an animal I cared for.

There was a small period of my life about 10 years ago where I was a vegetarian. From that time I came to the realization that it wasn't eating meat, it was the treatment of the meat when it was alive from both a health perspective and humane perspective that I had an issue with. I have no desire to go into the horrors of factory farming here, but I will say that it breaks my heart, and I have tried to shy away from that option as much as possible. Most of the meat I buy now comes from this incredible farm that is about 20 minutes away.

The past couple of years we have owned milking goats and egg-laying chickens. It wasn't until Thunder was born that we were presented with our first hard choice. Although it can be possible to find a male goat an alternative home, in general male goats are eaten after a half year or so (One of our goat books actually recommends drowning them immediately after birth). As he was our very first baby goat, we named him before he had stood up on his little shaky legs. We knew it was risky since there was a chance we would eat him, but we couldn't help ourselves. Six months flies by though, and soon enough this past winter we were stuck with the choice of Thunder. I will admit there was a part of me that wanted to send him away. Let someone else eat him, just so long as I didn't. There is no logic behind it. Why would I send away meat that I knew had been raised with love and good food, to in turn eat meat from somewhere else where I didn't know the conditions of the animal's life? It made no sense, but my heart sort-of wanted that anonymity.

There is a strange comfort in the disconnectedness with food, esp. with meat. If I can eat a pepperoni pizza without thinking about the cow and what sort of life it lived I am happy. Deep down am I happy with this ignorance? probably not, but on the surface it sure is a lot easier to see it as spicy pepperoni instead of unhappy cow who never saw the light of day.Thunder's Leg

I think a lot of this boils down to the lack of death in our country. I guess there is just as much death as anywhere else in the world, but we don't see it. We see roadkill, and maybe an open-casket funeral every once in awhile, but in general death is absent from everyday life. When I was in Italy dead animals would be prominently displayed in the open air markets~ whole chickens dangling from their feet, pig heads, legs with the bones in them. There was a connection for me between what I was seeing and what I was eating there. But, I don't see that here in the US. I think Americans might even have a pre-occupation with death (think of all the TV shows) relating to this lack of connecting with death.

Anyhow, we stepped up our farm this year when we took on 3 pigs. It was the first time we have gotten an animal specifically to eat. The male goats we will eat, but we are always hoping for female goats. The pigs, and now 100 chickens we bought specifically to eat. I am coming around to the idea, and feeling good that the meat I will eat was raised in a clean, happy place. I think this is one of those times in my life where I am tempted to say that ignorance was bliss, but then again, not really. What IS bliss is eating a good quality food that was lovingly handled. I figured I had to bring this whole conundrum up today because we got our one hundred day-old chicks in the mail today and my first thought was "They are so cute. I can't believe I am going to eat them." Hence getting me thinking about the good but hard choice to eat the animals we touch.

Here is the video Alex took of Lilikoi and me meeting them for the first time (we were running errands when they arrived). I have watched it several times, and the look on her face brings tears every time.